I was looking through a shelf of paperback picture books at the library last week, always a difficult task while watching a speed-crawling baby since it’s hard to read their thin spines. Just as I was about to go scoop up said crawler and go, I spotted The Minpins by Roald Dahl. I remembered seeing it listed in The Read-Aloud Handbook and I was curious to read it myself so I grabbed it.
We read it yesterday day and M and I both loved it. The language is a treat. Sentences like “Do not believe one word of what your mother says about Whangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids and the Terrible Bloodsuckling, Toothpluckling, Stonechuckling Spittler.” are so fun to read.
In the story, a boy sneaks away into a forbidden forest while his mom thinks he’s playing in his room. While running from one of the forest’s fearsome beasts, he discovers a world of tiny people called the Minpins and forms a special friendship with them.
We’ve been reading The Littles series so M was delighted to read another story about little people. The book is quite long for a picture book and when we had to put it down to leave for summer camp, M was most distressed not to hear the end. We picked it up once she was back home and gulped down the rest. I highly recommend it.
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